bug_of_war said:
Um, about the ME3 thing you're talking about (I'm assuming the crucible is what you're refering to as the macguffin/DEM), it isn't a macguffin. Macguffins are objects/things that drive the plot of the story, but have no real overall effect on the plot. The Crucible can seem to be a macguffin, but the fact that you use it in the end cancels it out. Similar reasoning goes for the Deus Ex Machina idea, the fact that the crucible is introduced at the start of the game, we are told that it will stop the Reapers somehow, and that technically the space child IS the crucible/citadel hybrid, it negates the idea that it is a Deus Ex Machina.
I'm also confused where you're getting the idea that the present cycles species had 2000 years to prepare for the Reapers. Would you be able to explain to me a little more what you meant by that? As for the reverse engineering of Soverign's weapons, the game made it clear that most of the debris was lost, stolen, destroyed or simply thrown away due to The Illusive Man, the Council being complete idiots, and random scavengers. We also know that even dead Reapers can still influence and indoctrinate organics so there really wasn't anyway to reverse engineer the highly advanced weapons. Your other points are quite reasonable though, as it is wierd how huge squid robots somehow just have super fast engines etc etc.
hmmm the plot did revolve around the crucible... though it was actually part of the story..not sure if it means it cancels it out but I see your point.
Deus ex machina is also down to interpretation...it was introduced at the start of ME3 but one could still interpret it as something not hinted at or forshadowed that came up at the 3rd act of the trilogy. An example would be if a new technology or material of interest not hinted at appeared in the 3rd movie of back to the future or in the return of the jedi- Like if there was no deathstar or mention of a deathstar in 'A new hope' but at the start of 'return of the jedi' someone said.. 'we got to stop the deathstar, they are making one you know!'. Maybe it doesn't fall under macguffin or deus ex machina but there would be a very poor story telling element there. i don't know what it would be defined as? contrived? maybe that's too strong a word
2000 years because that's when the rachni wars were.
The rachni queen said they were influenced by the reapers, hence went to war.
Sovereign was coincidently flying around trying to figure out how to open the citadel relay
So he either just started a war for fun or common sense dictates he was trying to open the relay after Plan A failed. (This isn't my theory I just made up, it's mainstream from all the quotes and fully accepted on BSN)
The codex states thianx cannons were made by reverse engineering sovereign parts.
The 'random scavengers' story element was just made to justify the council and most other people still not taking the reaper threat seriously..(or shepard would just tell Illusive man to get stuffed and rejoin the Alliance)..fair enough.
The BSN forums were rife with threads asking why they spent all those resources on a crucible device they were unsure about, when they could of equipped everything with thianx cannons. This feeds into the annoyance the reapers were made extra powerful to justify the crucible so they could ignore the lore
I forgot to add there is also a whole new race (humans) and possibly the geth army for the reapers to contend against.
The krogan appeared during the rachni wars...salarians lifted them up from their relatively primitive state to fight.
So to these advantages against the reapers:
2000 year delay allowing everyone to advance
reverse engineered sovereign weapons (thianx cannons)
control of relays
control of citadel
no surprise attack (even though they still somehow managed to make ME3 a kind of surprise attack anyway)
add 3 new powerful races to contend with -humans, krogan, possibly geth -that can change sides(and these aren't crappy ones like volous and hanar)
I'm not saying the reapers would be a walkover ....but the 'there's no way to win conventionally' line Hackket keeps brainwashing you with, whilst purposely never mentioning any of the major advantages I listed above was so so poor
The explanation of Hackett getting his arse kicked in minutes and running away to regroup whilst the Turian's were holding out throughout 2/3's of the game was also laughable, even if they were losing very very slowly